SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

The prisoner in the adjacent cage no longer looked at her, and Jisquekai’s cage remained empty. Lately, the Sualwet on the far end barely complained when taken from his cage. He did as he was told, nothing more than a trapped animal.

On the tenth night, Vaughn finally returned. Accompanying him were two furred creatures that walked on all fours. They stood tall, their black-and-gray backs reaching his waist, and they had watery eyes, long snouts, and pointed ears. Hounds. She had heard of how ancient Sualwets had once hunted these kinds of animals for meat. The hounds wagged their long tails, and their tongues lolled out of their mouths.

Nilafay thought they looked ridiculous, but the other two Sualwets scurried to the back of their cages. Vaughn left the hounds there to snuffle at the cage doors. She reached forward, stretching out her arm to touch their strange, elongated snouts.

As her long, thin fingers approached the bars, the hound nearest her took a deep breath, a long inhale that made its nose quiver and its ears fold down along its head. A deep rumble began in its chest, vibrating up its throat as its hair stood on end.

She froze, her hand hanging in the air, almost within reach.

The sound grew louder and lower, ripping through her mind like a parasitic worm. She shook. Her body vibrated with the timbre of the animal’s growl.

It lunged forward, and Nilafay tumbled back, jerking her hand away just as sharp teeth wrapped around the bars of her cage. Hot breath shot from the beast’s nose.

Why would Vaughn do this? Why would he bring these monsters here and leave her alone with them? He never glanced her way or said a word, and her loneliness froze in her heart. What had she done wrong to drive him away?

Why did she care?

She hated the yearning in her chest when thinking of the time he’d spent speaking with her. Even in the company of two other Sualwets, she felt so alone. The walls of her cage crept closer, and the confines of the prison shrank until she could barely breathe. She inhaled deep breaths in quick succession to keep from drowning in the dry air. The room spun and her vision grayed. Gods, she felt like she would either throw up or pass out. She didn’t even know which one to pray for as long as something happened to relieve the pain in her chest.

“Sit,” the prisoner in the cage next to hers said. His voice was full of scratchy tones similar to the way the Erdlanders spoke. He was drying from the inside out, just like her. Soon they’d both be shells, fossils of bone and flesh. “Come sit here and slow your breaths.”

She sat against the bars near him, and he reached over, taking her hand in his. His cool touch helped her remember who she was, and soon she drifted to sleep.

In the morning, she awoke to Rhine’s gruff voice.

“Another jikmae failure!” He slammed his fist against the examination table, rattling the metal slab.

Vaughn replied in their gruff animal language. Nilafay hadn’t yet learned enough to follow along, but she picked out the words girl , waste , and dead .

“No, please!” she cried and slapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

The two men turned to stare at her. Vaughn’s eyes met hers, and sadness reflected back.

Rhine nodded and spoke quickly to Vaughn, gesturing with his hands. It was as if she hadn’t spoken at all, but she knew that drawing attention to herself had sealed her own fate.

Vaughn seemed to argue, standing up to the older man for the first time. He spoke in his gruff way, the words breaking off in his mouth as he chewed on them.

Rhine smiled and laid a hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, sending a glance in my direction.

Hope surged in her heart. Maybe Vaughn would save her. Maybe he would reason with Rhine on her behalf. He’d finally stood up for her.

But her hope dropped into her stomach like a boulder falling from a cliff into the sea. It turned to dread and fear as Vaughn turned away from her pleading eyes and nodded.

First, they called a guard to take the hounds away then pulled the prisoner at the end of the row of cages from his cell. When they laid the Sualwet on the table, they placed a mask over his face and gave him a shot in the arm. Nilafay watched as his body went limp. Soon his chest no longer moved with breath.

She had to look away when they sliced into his chest with a scalpel, but she could still hear the sounds of bone cracking and flesh being pulled apart. They had killed him. They’d done it on purpose, not like with Jisquekai, who had already been dead when they dissected him. This time, they sought out this prisoner’s death, brought it down with a speedy vengeance and delivered it to a man who had done nothing but suffer the entire time she had known him.

She longed to reach out for the Sualwet in the cage next to her, but she doubted he would touch her this time. She had done this, she was sure of it. Somehow she had inspired a thought in Rhine which had led to this horror. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to plug her ears against the ghastly sounds of a body being dismantled for no reason but the pleasure of her captors.

When they finished, Nilafay turned to find Vaughn staring at her, his face pale and drawn.

Rhine yanked off a pair of plastic gloves dripping with the man’s blood from his hand. The pliant material made a sucking, smacking sound as it released each finger. He said something in Erdlander and threw the gloves on the table.

Nilafay curled on her bed, hands over her ears, trying to shut out the sound of the guards coming to collect the body. It wasn’t even a man anymore, just a body.

More than anything, she missed the water. Her throat hurt, and the tears she wanted to shed for her fellow Sualwet wouldn’t come. She longed for the glimmering stars as they swam above the surface of the water, their light fading to gray the deeper she sank.

She couldn’t sink deep enough to escape the things she’d seen. No matter how many leagues she put between herself and this horror, she would never get far enough away. But she could go no farther than the confines of this small cage she could barely stand in and the scratchy fabric covering the pallet she slept on. If the stars could fade away, why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she hide from all of this?

She wrapped her arms tight around herself and pressed her face into the mattress. The tighter she squeezed her eyes shut, the louder her heart beat. She took refuge there, counting the uneven rhythm to herself as she sobbed her dry tears.

Eventually, she fell asleep. The room faded away, and she returned to the star lilies and her private refuge. She imagined letting her legs dangle in the water to soak up all the moisture her body had grown so desperate for. The moons shone above, and the ruby moon winked with a devilish smile, mocking her fantasy. Even in her dream she knew it wasn’t real.

There was no escape for her.

She woke to a hand on her shoulder. Rhine and Vaughn must have left, and her fellow captive had reached out. She sighed and placed her hand atop his, needing the comfort so much it brought a new wave of grief to cover her heart.

“Neela?”

She turned to find Vaughn touching her shoulder, his face ashen, his eyes filled with tears of his own.

She jerked her hand away and sat up. Her chest tightened at him being so close to her, and she pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them protectively.

“Here.” He held out a glass of water.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to reject his kindness and refuse to even look at him. But she was weak and so thirsty, drying from the inside out. She grabbed the glass and drank the whole thing in one gulp, letting water run out the sides of her mouth. She wanted to pour it over her head, roll around in it until she’d absorbed every molecule.